Wednesday, September 1, 2010

I received my new Aurora 9 RC transmitter yesterday, and I am very excited about its features.

I am a long time owner of Hitec Optic 6 and before buying the Aurora9 I was evaluating also the Futaba T10CG. The Futaba was more expensive, and also more common in my local group of RC modelers, but is lacking the telemetry features that are very interesting for me.

In the coming weekend I will test it on the fly field.

My new Aurora has firmware release 1.06, as seen from the info menu of the system panel.
I also ordered HPP-22 device for connecting radio to pc and also the HTS-SS Sensor Station, but these components are still to arrive.

First Impressions
I found the device extremely easy to setup. There is a great wizard for setting up all the model features. It is really easy and quick. Great improvement over the Optic 6 menus that I found quite clumsy and not intuitive.
Radio pairing is straightforward. Touch Screen is simply great. Screen is large and allows quick check of all the trim settings. Subtrims and EPAs (End Of Paths)are just two taps away.
It would be nice to have some front indicators of the state of the two leds on the Spectra AFHSS module. Those leds on the back are simply impossible to check while piloting.

Telemetry!
I am excited about its telemetry features, and I am planning to study the protocol used between the sensors and the receiver. I think it could be an I2C protocol. Will definitely try to find some more information.
The basic idea would be to decode the protocol so to add my own sensors on the plane, and to send to the pilot the collected data via the receiver data port thru the downlink channel.

I want a Datalogger!
My idea is to build a small datalogging interface device to be used at fly field, to be connected to the data port of the spectra AFHSS module, so to log telemetry data to flash memory.
The flash memory could then be read on the pc.
I think that such a project could be very useful for Hitec Aurora9 users, and eventually for other telemetry capable radio systems..